


open the window, let the light in

by Rivendell101



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/M, Sharing a Bed, Soft Sweet Pea (Riverdale)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-23
Updated: 2019-12-23
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:47:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,224
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21923896
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rivendell101/pseuds/Rivendell101
Summary: Sweet Pea feels his soulmate’s pain for the first time when he’s seven years old, even if he doesn’t know it yet.He’s sitting on the floor behind the counter of his mother’s flower shop playing with what’s left of a silver spool of ribbon and the clippings of the peonies and lilies his mom is working into an elegant bouquet. She’s humming to herself over the soft patter of rain against the windows as she works, carefully placing each stem into a pretty, crystal vase that she let Sweet Pea pick out for her.(Soulmate pain-sharing AU. Told in vignettes.)
Relationships: Sweet Pea (Riverdale)/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 52
Collections: A Very Merry Serpent Hissmas





	open the window, let the light in

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts).



> My submission to the Southside Secret Santa for Katie! I hope you enjoy it and merry Hissmas ;)
> 
> As always, thanks to southsidewrites for being an excellent beta. The title for this comes from the song "Love Letters" by Paper Route.

Sweet Pea feels his soulmate’s pain for the first time when he’s seven years old, even if he doesn’t know it yet.

He’s sitting on the floor behind the counter of his mother’s flower shop playing with what’s left of a silver spool of ribbon and the clippings of the peonies and lilies his mom is working into an elegant bouquet. She’s humming to herself over the soft patter of rain against the windows as she works, carefully placing each stem into a pretty, crystal vase that she let Sweet Pea pick out for her.

The silver ribbon is wound through his fingers when it happens.

Suddenly, without him moving from his spot on the floor, his knee begins to ache. The twinge of pain isn’t anything he’s never felt before, but it _is_ unexpected, and Sweet Pea drops the ribbon. It flutters to the ground at his feet like a wounded bird or the snowflakes that fall on his birthday: beautiful and cold.

The ache subsides as quickly as it was there. His mother keeps humming over the sound of the rain. Sweet Pea picks up the silver ribbon and winds it around the stem of a peony his mother dropped.

It’s not until he’s older that he learns about soulmates and the pain they sometimes share.

What Sweet Pea feels has always been slight: bumps and bruises, a skinned knee, paper-cuts that disappear. Momentary pain that he can never be sure isn’t just his because he’s nine-and-a-half with gangly limbs and little common sense, always coming home with scraped knees.

One afternoon, he’s outside playing with Fangs and Joaquin and Toni. He’s running and laughing and then the world goes white around him. There’s a stinging sensation on his left temple, like he’s been hit with something solid and sharp. His ears start ringing, and someone is screaming, and when he grabs his head, his hands come away sticky and red.

His mother rushes him to the hospital, but the long cut on his head has already faded into a silver hairline scar by the time they get there, and there’s nothing for the doctors to do but wipe away the blood and tell him he’s okay.

When they get home, his mother sits him down on the table in the kitchen, a small and somber smile on her face. She strokes his cheek and brushes his hair back to look at the thin scar that shouldn’t be his, one he’ll have for the rest of his life. She doesn’t cry, but he thinks she must want to.

She tells him about soulmates the same way she used to tell him bedtime stories, full of wonder and magic. How, for thousands of years, sensations have been shared between people who the universe believes are meant to know each other; how their name will appear on his skin some day when the stars align just right, no rhyme or reason to how or when or why. And someday, that name will turn a brilliant silver when he forms a connection with them. It’ll be a piece of them he’ll carry around with him. Always.

She calls it fate. Destiny. Some unseen and unknown cosmic force that’s bigger than any one person can understand. Soulmates aren’t perfect, and they aren’t one half of a whole, but they’re someone that will touch you so deeply that it carves a mark on your heart.

_Like magic_ , is what he whispers back, all wide-eyed childhood wonder and mystified awe. He reaches up to touch the silver scar on his hairline, poking with stubby fingers. It doesn’t feel like magic beneath his hands, just a smooth scar that isn’t really his.

And she laughs, a bell-like sound. _Like magic, sweet pea_ , she tells him, standing up from where she’s been crouched. She strokes his hair back again, reminding him to be careful now. Because what happens to him happens to them, too. There’s a look in her eyes that he can’t place (dread, but he doesn’t know the word yet).

He asks her if she has his father’s name on her skin.

Instead of answering, she just sends him another sad smile and kisses him on his forehead, right over his soulmate’s scar.

He’s just turned twelve when he sees the name scrawled across his mother’s ribcage, bold and black, but still elegant, a perfect fit for her. But it’s not his father’s name. It’s not silver like he expects it to be. And the name is the same color as the dark bruise that’s lower on her side, bold and black and the size of his father’s hand.

She’s bent over the bathroom counter with her head in her hands, her shoulders shaking as she sobs, and she doesn’t notice Sweet Pea standing in the doorway with horror in his eyes.

They’d been arguing for a while now, for as long as Sweet Pea can remember, but he’s never seen anything like this before—or maybe she was just better at hiding it. It’s been getting worse lately since Dad lost his job and started drinking again. He just didn’t know how bad.

“Mom?”

Her head snaps up. The skin around her eye is the same color as the bruise on her side—the same color as the name scrawled across her ribcage. Her lip is split and puffy, but the blood has already been wiped away.

(Later, he’ll wonder if it’ll leave a scar.)

She tries to smile for him, but it only pulls at the cut on her lip, making her wince. “I’m fine, Sweet Pea,” she promises, dismissing him with a wave of her hand. But by now he’s too old to believe the lie.

Ignoring her, he takes a step further into the room, reaching for her and not knowing what else to do. “Mom—”

She snaps at him, calling him by his first name like she only does when she’s angry with him, and he cringes back. Immediately, an apology flickers in her left eye, the one that’s not swollen half-shut.

_I’m sorry_ , her eyes seem to say before her gaze cuts back to the off-white sink. Her shoulders begin to shake, but there’s nothing he can do but wrap his arms around her tightly, like that might hold her together for just a little bit longer.

His father hits him for the first time three weeks later, and Sweet Pea hopes his soulmate can’t feel it.

He’s sixteen, and he decides soulmates are bullshit.

Sweet Pea used to think about them in naïve, childlike wonder, but he’s not a child anymore, and there’s no ink across his ribs. Not like the ones that have been appearing on his classmates.

_Like magic_ , he remembers himself saying when his mother first told him about the bonds, when the scar on his hairline was new, a soft silver line that connected him to someone somewhere that he didn’t know. How the universe knew that for some inexplicable reason they just had to meet.

Like magic.

He doesn’t know when the cynicism crept in and took root in a dark spot in his heart, but four years is a long time, and things have changed. His father is gone now. He doesn’t know where, and he doesn’t care, but that doesn’t mean he’s forgotten the screaming and the black and blue bruises that used to litter his side like some ugly watercolor painting.

His mother’s mark is still pitch black, but faded a little at the edges—worn out, like a missed opportunity. Like it’s too late. Like her soulmate is already gone. And he can’t help but think how different things might have been if they had just met each other sooner.

If he has a soulmate, then he doesn’t want one.

By the time Sweet Pea turns eighteen and he’s ready for college, he almost believes he doesn’t have a soulmate anymore. Joaquin and Toni and Fangs all have names tattooed on their ribs, but Sweet Pea’s chest is bare, naked, _empty_. No dark stain to give him any hints. Maybe that’s some cosmic punishment for not wanting one.

Sometimes, he swears he can still feel them. Twinges of pain in places he wasn’t hit. Paper cuts on his fingers that shouldn’t be there. Headaches that come out of nowhere and don’t feel like the ones he sometimes gets. The dull, phantom ache of something that isn’t his.

Sometimes, when he listens at midnight, when there’s no other sounds but his shallow breathing in the darkness, he swears he can hear another heart beating in his chest, just a fraction of a second behind his own. Almost like an echo.

As much as he tries to ignore the phantom touches, sometimes he wonders why he gets their pain, but not their name. Like a punishment.

_This is what you wanted_ , each twinge of pain seems to say, aching. _You asked for this._

And in retaliation, he gets his first tattoo, big and bold and black and maybe out of spite or resentment; he hopes it hurts them as much as it does him.

* * *

At the age of six years old, Jubilee Jones is infinitely wiser than she should be. At least, when it comes to soulmates. She’s probably too young to know what they are, or even understand it, but it’s not her fault.

She’s sitting on the floor in the living room beside her dad, a book on his lap as he reads to her and Jughead. The lights are low, and it’s snowing outside, so she leans against Dad’s side, only half listening to what he’s saying as her eyes begin to wander around the room.

She doesn’t feel it at first, already half-asleep. It isn’t until her dad drops the book and swears that she registers the aching in her arm. Someone screams. It might be her.

A phantom break is what their neighbor next door, a nurse, calls it as she inspects the mottled black and blue bruise on Jubilee’s little arm. Her soulmate must have broken theirs. It should be gone in a day or two. None of the adults look at her as they talk, as if they’ve forgotten that she’s there, and Jubilee _listens_.

She’s too young to understand most of it, but the word soulmate is whispered like it’s something _special_ , and that’s the part that sticks with her. Her soulmate has a broken arm and she can _feel_ it, and there must be something magic in that. It’s enough for her to forget about the pain.

But she never mentions it, because Mom looks angry and Dad has this shadow under his eyes that she’s never seen before.

She’s nine when someone finally tells her about soulmates.

It’s summer and she and Jughead and Jellybean have gone to stay with Grandma Rosie for a few weeks because something’s wrong at home. Dad has been gone a lot lately, and Mom has been more snappish than usual. And then they started fighting. Grandma has always been nice, so Jubilee can’t complain.

The scar on her temple is almost healed, nothing but a thin silver sliver left behind, and Grandma’s eyes widen when she sees it. She traces a finger across the scar, big blue eyes widening in surprise. Then, she asks if it’s Jubilee’s.

And Jubilee just frowns, her brows knitting together behind a curtain of dark and messy hair. Because _of course it’s hers, Grandma_. Who else could it belong to? And Grandma clucks her tongue and flicks Jubilee’s forehead for her sass. When Jubilee makes a face, Grandma laughs and tells her and Jughead to sit down at the kitchen table.

Grandma tells them about soulmates in a way that makes them sound like magic. The story is long and embellished, and Jubilee and Jughead listen with wide eyes and mouths agape. Grandma tells them how pain is shared between soulmates, some long lost remnant of when souls were housed within a single body: two heads, four arms, four legs. Split down the middle and forever searching for their second half. Grandma tells them this just a myth, but maybe that’s the romance of it all.

For thousands of years, sensations have been shared between people who have never met—people who will, perhaps, never meet. And by some lucky stroke of fate, they’ll be forever connected through their skin, their souls, their hearts. All because the universe believes they’re meant to know one another. Names will appear on their skin like scars or the ink of a tattoo—like the one she sometimes sees winding across Dad’s side—carved so deeply into them it can’t be removed. Permanent and perhaps just as painful, each one unique in their own way, like snowflakes, or fingerprints, or the beat of a heart.

Grandma says those marks will turn silver someday, just like how all things age.

It sounds like _magic_ , and Grandma calls it fate. Something bigger than any one person can understand unless they’ve felt that connection themselves.

While Jughead just stares back with his eyes wide and his mouth even wider, Jubilee reaches up to touch the silver scar on her temple. She thinks back to when she was six and could feel her arm break, though it wasn’t really hers. Oh, but she could feel it for days after, a lingering ache that kept her awake at night. Just an echo of what someone else felt.

Maybe she knew that already.

Jubilee crosses her arms and asks to see Grandma’s mark; Grandma pinches her nose and laughs.

Jubilee has just turned thirteen when the headaches start. They’re brief at first, and they come out of nowhere. Short, but intense enough that sometimes she feels like she can’t even breathe. Then they get longer, less frequent, and she becomes numb to them as the months go on. They’re easier to ignore, and the medication helps. Jubilee wonders if her soulmate can feel them too.

She’s lying in bed, half-asleep, and her parents are in the living room yelling, and there are mottled black and blue bruises on her side that disappear as quickly as they come because they’re not hers. Not really. They’re just the echo of someone’s else’s. Each one makes her feel sick, but there’s nothing she can do but curl up tighter beneath her blanket and hope for it all to stop.

The ache is uncomfortable, but at least it’s real. Almost tangible.

Her bedroom door is open just a crack, just enough to let a thin sliver of light in from the hallway. That light grows bigger as the door opens wider, but Jubilee stays staring at the wall. Eventually the light shrinks back down. Beside her, the mattress dips beneath a new weight.

Neither of them say anything for a long time, and Jubilee watches as shadows dance across the walls and the blinking red light of her alarm clock changes from eleven-fifty-nine to midnight. The only sound in the room is their breathing. In the living room, Mom and Dad have gone silent.

“Do you think Mom and Dad are going to get a divorce?” Jughead asks her after a while, voice barely above a whisper. She can picture the look on his face: pursed lips and narrowed eyes. Too grown up for his own good. Jughead likes to think he’s smarter than everyone else, but very rarely does she think it’s true.

“I don’t know,” she whispers back, because there’s not much else to say.

For as long as Jubilee and Jughead have been alive, their parents soul-marks have been pitch black and scrawled across their ribcage, and neither of them seemed to care that they weren’t each other’s match. Because they loved each other, they loved their children, and nothing else really mattered.

Two months ago, the name written beneath Dad’s heart turned stark silver, and the arguing hasn’t stopped since.

Neither of them ask if a soulmate can be platonic.

When she’s sixteen, Jubilee wakes up one morning in early October with a burning pain searing her left side, like she’s on fire. It’s over just as quickly as it begins, short and intense, just like the headaches she still sometimes has, and as soon as the fire is gone, she claws at the blankets wrapped around her, kicking them off as they become suffocating.

She yanks up the hem of her shirt, stumbling towards the small mirror on the wall to get a better look, and there, scrawled across her ribs below her left breast, is a name that wasn’t there before, written in bold and black ink: _Jin_. Short and sweet. Three letters, but thousands of possibilities. It’s the same color as the phantom bruises that used to litter both their skin.

Jubilee always used to be so excited to finally have her mark—to finally know who the universe has in store for her, but looking at it now, there’s nothing but a bitter taste in her mouth. If she could peel that ink from her skin, she thinks she would. All soul-marks leave are trails of broken hearts. Almosts.

The door to her bedroom suddenly slams open, and Jubilee drops the hem of her shirt, letting it flutter back down to cover the pitch black mark on her side just in time for Jughead to stumble into her room, shirtless with messy bed-head and a wild look in his eyes.

At first she doesn’t know what’s wrong. He’s talking too fast for her to understand, his arms moving around erratically, and she stares at him in absolute bewilderment until he runs out of breath. That’s when she sees it. A metallic glint in the morning light.

_Elizabeth_ , is written on his chest in a neat, cursive handwriting. It’s silver.

At eighteen, Jubilee finds herself absentmindedly caressing the soul-mark on her ribcage, tracing the ink-stained name on her skin like it’s an old friend or a lover, a motion she’s done a thousand times over the last two years.

Her fingertips drift lower, towards her stomach, where she can just barely feel the lingering sting of needles from a tattoo. She tries to trace the shape of it, but can’t remember the pattern, and it slips away from her like smoke. Intangible.

* * *

Sweet Pea meets Jubilee by chance his second year of college.

He ends up in a dorm of four with Fangs and two others, some jock named Archie who’s studying music theory and business and drinks too much coffee, and a brooding, cynical English major that goes by _Jughead_ , of all things—though, Sweet Pea can’t mock him for that—and plays Dungeons and Dragons every Friday night instead of going to parties.

It’s an interesting match-up, to say the least. And while Sweet Pea would be content to ignore his new roommates for the rest of the year, Archie is too friendly to ignore, and Jughead’s sarcasm pulls a smirk from Sweet Pea within the first week, much to his chagrin.

They have a few friends that come around, mostly on weekends. There’s Betty, who Sweet Pea quickly learns is Jughead’s soulmate after seeing the scrawling cursive signature on his ribs. And then Kevin, whose soul-mark turns a brilliant sterling silver two months after he meets Joaquin.

The sight of it causes something bitter to take root in his chest, the acidic taste of envy sharp and heavy on his tongue. And he doesn’t miss the look of pity in Fangs’ eyes. That only makes it worse, and he finds himself absentmindedly rubbing the empty spot on his chest where his own mark should be.

He can never shake the feeling that there’s something he’s missing.

And then he meets Jughead’s sister.

It wasn’t supposed to happen. Sweet Pea was supposed to be heading home for the weekend to see his mom and wasn’t meant to be anywhere near the dorms. But his bus was late, and his mom had a surprise client at her florist shop, and rescheduling was the easiest solution.

So, when he bursts back into the dorm, he nearly runs straight into a pretty little brunette he’s never seen before. She yelps as he bowls her over, a six-and-a-half-foot wall of muscle in leather, and it’s only his hands on her waist that keeps her from tumbling to the floor.

“Shit,” he swears, stumbling out an apology, his grip tight on her waist. His pinky brushes against painfully soft and smooth skin where her shirt has ridden up. “I’m so sorry…” he trails off, suddenly lost in the warm amber hues in her eyes.

She only laughs, lingering a little too long before taking a step back. “Jubilee,” she tells him.

“Jubilee,” he repeats, and when he says her name for the first time it tastes sweet on his tongue, like honey.

Like Jughead, she’s an English major, and the twins delve into a bickering tangent when he asks what they’re studying. The way her eyes light up when she talks makes his chest warm, and it breaks his heart when she turns to him apologetically, her smile small and a little sad.

“Sorry,” she says. “You probably don’t care about any of this.”

Before he can answer, Jughead grabs her in a headlock, screeching something about some long dead author Sweet Pea doesn’t know. It ends with Jughead on the floor, Jubilee sitting cross-legged on his back, and Sweet Pea can’t wipe the stupid smile from his face.

Jubilee is sitting on the counter in the dorm kitchen, her legs swinging back and forth absentmindedly, her fingers warmed by the mug held loosely in her grasp. Sweet Pea’s hip brushes against her bare thigh, warm even through the layer of his jeans. He sighs, and it’s loud in the room. It’s well past midnight now, but they’re RA’s now, so neither of them move. She leans a little closer.

“ ‘Sweet Pea’ isn’t your real name, is it?” she asks, only half-joking, because it’s the only thing she’s ever heard people call him—even professors.

Slowly, his gaze rises to meet hers, a flicker of mirth there and something mischievous that makes her skin tingle all over.

“No,” he tells her, chuckling. “It’s what my mom always calls me. She’s a florist. It just kind of stuck.”

She hums in understanding, idly stirring the contents of her mug as she stares at the clock. “So you’re a mama’s boy.” Sweet Pea pinches the skin just behind the bend of her knee, and she yelps and swats at him, making him laugh again. “What’s your real name?” she asks after her own giggles subside.

“Guess you’ll have to figure it out,” he teases, and she thinks about the name in black ink written below her heart and dares to hope.

Somehow, Jubilee slips into his life like she’s always been there. Like she’s something he’s been searching for without even knowing. And he doesn’t notice until she becomes so ingrained in his life that he can’t imagine it without her.

After the first time they met in his dorm, they just kept running into each other. In the halls between classes, at one of the old, local diners, at the parties on campus; she was _everywhere_. 

And somehow chance encounters in the hall become midnight snack runs during finals and coffee cups left on his workstation in his studio class. It becomes movie nights on Fridays and stolen sweatshirts and shoulders to cry on when things are hard.

It’s not something he notices until one afternoon during finals, how natural it becomes to have her _there_.

He’s meticulously working a piece of clay in the corner of his room, trying to shape the shoulder of one of the classes models from memory, with a clenched jaw and fingers sticky and a little clumsy, and she’s sprawled across his bed on her stomach, idly flipping through a textbook, studying for her finals and humming to some indie song playing on her phone. They aren’t talking. Somehow, just being there is enough.

Jubilee comes into his life like a goddamn hurricane with pretty eyes and a wicked smile meant to ruin him, pulling him in until there’s no going back, and he lets her.

He never mentions Jubilee to his mother, but somehow she knows even without him breathing a word of it, a secretive smile on her face whenever he comes home to visit for the weekend. Sweet Pea should have known she’d see it on his face; he wears his heart on his sleeve.

She says he looks happier. Maybe he is.

_“_ So,” his mom begins softly one weekend during the new semester, a mischievous smile on her lips that he can’t see with her back turned, “who’s the girl? _”_

Sweet Pea nearly drops his soup. The liquid sloshes in the bowl and spills over his thumb, hotter than he expected, and he hisses as it burns. Wide-eyed, his head snaps towards his mother, her shoulders shaking with restrained laughter as he sputters out, “who told you about her? _”_

Her eyes crinkle at the corners as she laughs. “You just did.”

(And miles away, Jubilee swears under her breath and yanks her hand away from the book she’s reading. The side of her thumb is bright red like she’s been burned, but it fades as quickly as she notices it.)

After a while, he starts to wonder if maybe—just maybe—there’s something more there. Like when she borrows his jacket, and it comes back smelling like something sweet and fruity that makes his breath catch. Or when she curls beneath his arm at the bar, nestling against his side and idly playing with the zipper on his jacket. When her eyes linger a little too long on his arms. When his fingers trace slow, absentminded circles on her back, and she leans into the touch.

They don’t talk about soulmates. She never asks about his tattoo, and he’s never seen hers, but sometimes he wonders about it—if it’s still an inky black or if it’s a brilliant silver like her brother’s is, and it makes him bitter all over again because all he has is naked skin where a name should be. Instead, he compensates with getting bigger and bolder tattoos and tries not to notice the pity in the artist’s eyes whenever he sees that Sweet Pea doesn’t have a name.

That pity becomes a job opportunity. The artist sees some of Sweet Pea’s work at one of the art department’s showcases and offers him an apprenticeship. Sweet Pea accepts, and when he tells his friends, Jubilee throws her arms around him and squeezes like she doesn’t plan on letting go.

The night ends with them both drunk and sad and alone in their own heads, curled up beside each other on his bed and staring at the faded, glow-in-the-dark stars they stuck to his ceiling when he first moved into his apartment their third year of college. Jubilee drops her head onto his shoulder, and his fingers trace absentminded shapes against her bare shoulder.

“My parents are getting a divorce,” she murmurs, whisper lost against the soft flannel he’s wearing. Her voice is smaller than he’s ever heard it, but tired, like she’s been expecting it.

His grip on her tightens just a little. She’s made off-handed mentions of her parents not being a match before, and how Jughead’s soul-mark was silver the moment he got it, meeting Betty before they even had their marks. And he gets it.

A tight grip wraps around his throat. His mom’s mark is still black and he hasn’t seen his father in years now—doesn’t care where the bastard is—but he’s never forgotten the bruises left behind. He’s almost tells her this, but thinking about it makes it hard to breathe, so he just mumbles back, “I’m sorry,” and buries his nose against her hair, drinking in the sweet scent of jasmine blossoms.

Jubilee shakes her head. There’s a wry, almost bitter smile on her lips, and he thinks she might have believed in magic once, but not anymore. And she curls into his chest like she understands what he’s left unsaid, like she wants to protect him from the world as much as he tries to protect her.

They lie like that until the drunken haze wears off and they drift away, a tangled mess of limbs and things left unsaid.

“You should give me a tattoo,” Jubilee says out of nowhere one afternoon, snapping him from his thoughts. She’s perched on a stool at the counter in his apartment, looking at him over his shoulder with a look in her eyes that he can’t quite place.

Sweet Pea glances up from the couch where he’s trying— _failing—_ to capture the color of her eyes on stark white sheets of paper. Warm amber and rich honey hues that remind him of home. And sometimes, when sunlight spills through the open window in his apartment just right, they turn a brilliant gold. They’re in their last year of college, and the only final he has left is for his studio class: his final portfolio. His specialty is in clay, and he wanted to challenge himself with the style.

Watercolor doesn’t do her justice.

“What?” he asks her, brows furrowing in confusion. He’s just finished his apprenticeship with Micah after almost two years, but sometimes, he still doesn’t feel ready for the real thing. He has a steady hand and he can draw, but there’s something about the contact that makes him nervous.

But Jubilee just rolls those pretty eyes at him. “Come on, it’ll be good practice.” When he sends her a skeptical look, she locks eyes with him and says, “I trust you,” and it breaks his heart a little bit.

Two weeks later, she’s lying on a bench in front of him, half-naked and letting him draw a design on her back in white ink. She’s soft and small under his touch, and he swears he can feel the needles in his own skin with every pass of the tattoo gun.

And after it’s over he traces the winding shape of it with the tip of his gloved finger and she shivers.

(He can almost feel that too.)

* * *

He almost doesn’t notice it at first.

Sweet Pea wakes up one cold morning in November in his apartment in the city. His heart is in his throat, and there’s a feeling he can’t put a name to swirling in his chest—a burning sensation that he can’t ignore. His skin itches, and his head aches; his mouth is dry. At once, he remembers going out with everyone last night to celebrate his twenty-third birthday.

For too long, he just lies there, staring at the sunlight leaving spots of gold swirling on the pale gray walls of his room, still in that hazy daze of early morning where he has no responsibilities, and for one moment, the entire world stands still. He doesn’t think about having to work at the tattoo parlor this afternoon or how he needs to call his landlord about an issue with the plumbing.

Sweet Pea watches the sunlight flicker absentmindedly, only half-awake and unwilling to get up. Slowly, the drowsy feeling of first waking drifts away. The blankets thrown over him become stifling. That burning itch in his chest continues as he blindly gropes for his phone, noticing that, despite his mild hangover, he’s awake twenty minutes before his alarm, and going back to bed isn’t worth it.

With a heavy sigh, Sweet Pea kicks away the blankets and stretches, his shoulders making a satisfying pop as he finally rolls out of bed. The floor is chilly beneath his feet, and he shivers at the cold air that greets him with a kiss. His clothes from last night are scattered across the floor haphazardly.

It’s not until he’s stumbling into the bathroom and flicking on the light that the faintest metallic gleam catches his eye. An icy hand crawls into his chest and _squeezes_. His heart stops the moment he sees it, like everything is crumbling in around him, and he’s torn between elation and an overwhelming sense of dread.

And he laughs in a way that sounds more like a sob, his shoulders shaking. _Jubilee_ is written across the left side of his ribcage, small and elegant. It’s already a brilliant silver, just like the scar on his forehead from over a decade ago. And it’s cold and beautiful and a little bit magical, like moonlight or a silent snowfall in the dead of winter.

With a trembling hand, he lets his fingers trace her name, following the curves with a lover’s caress. It warms beneath his touch, a tingling sensation following the path his finger takes, and it steals his breath away. And it’s _silver_ ; Jubilee is his soulmate.

Because of course, she is. Of _course,_ it would be her. It’s always been her, from the very first time he saw her standing in his dorm almost three years ago. There’s never been anyone else for him but Jubilee; he was just never willing to admit it to himself. He was a fool for ever trying to deny it.

And the dread creeps back into his heart. Why now? Why couldn’t her name have been inked on his heart years ago when he still believed in magic?

Jubilee Jones is his soulmate.

And he knows he isn’t hers.

It’s harder than he thought it would be, keeping the name on his chest a secret. He can’t change around Jubilee anymore, and he wasn’t aware how often Fangs bursts into his apartment until he had something to hide. The last time he added a new tattoo to his collection, his boss stared at the space beneath his heart with wide eyes, looking at the name engraved in his skin. The pity usually there was gone, replaced with awe.

He never did figure out why it took so many years for her name to appear on his chest—why the universe in all its infinite wisdom waited until he was already half in love with her before tattooing her across his heart, sinking her under his skin.

He asks his mom about it once because if anyone could possibly know the secrets to the universe, it would be her. But she just smiles when she sees the silver mark on his chest, and she cries and tells him that things happen for a reason, even if it’s beyond anyone’s understanding.

Joaquin finds out about Jubilee’s name two months after it appears on Sweet Pea’s skin. It’s the beginning of January, when it’s so cold the air stings his lungs and his breathing is a fog in the air that disappears like smoke. They’re closing up the shop, just about to lock the doors when the breath is slammed from his lungs and an agonizing pain like he’s never felt before rips through the left side of his chest.

He can’t breathe.

A wheezing sound slips from his chest, and horror claws at his throat as the pain starts to dim as quickly as it was there, just an echo of something that isn’t his. Joaquin’s hands are on him, prodding at his chest in search of something that isn’t there and calling his name. The words are lost behind the ringing in Sweet Pea’s ears.

Jubilee’s name spills from his mouth in a choked, desperate gasp, and Joaquin stiffens. Frantic, blue eyes lock with Sweet Pea’s terrified gaze. Understanding passes between them. Joaquin’s gaze drops to the space beneath Sweet Pea’s heart, hidden beneath layers of flannel and leather.

His silver soul-mark burns.

They get a call from Jughead ten minutes later. He and Jubilee were in an accident on their way back from seeing their family for the holidays. It was dark. The other car didn’t see them. They’re both fine, but Jubilee’s ribs are bruised and the car is totaled.

Only after the call ends does the knot that formed in Sweet Pea’s chest loosen.

Joaquin looks at him like he wants to confirm what he already knows, but the relief that washes over Sweet Pea’s features must be enough.

There’s silver in her skin, delicate white ink winding across her back, like stardust or crushed diamonds. The color reminds him of long winter nights and the gentle falling of snow, the sliver of the moon at midnight: cold and beautiful and almost magical. He catches sight of it sometimes when Jubilee’s hair is tied up or when her shirt slips low on her shoulder, so pale against her skin it’s easy to miss. But he knows the shape of it, every gentle curve where the ink was embedded beneath her skin.

Sweet Pea traces it with his eyes, wishing it was his hands instead. The sleeve of her gray sweater is half-hanging off her left shoulder, and, if he looks closely, he can just barely see the white, curving lines: a cluster of tiny jasmine blossoms.

It reminds him painfully of her name scrawled across his ribs in an elegant script, just as beautiful and sharp as the white ink on her shoulder, and briefly, he considers cutting his mark out. Removing her name from his skin permanently, if only so that he isn’t reminded of her every night as he’s trying to fall asleep, his finger tracing the silver lines absentmindedly. It would hurt. It would hurt more than anything he’s ever felt, like someone was ripping his heart from his chest.

But his heart isn’t his anymore. It’s always been hers. And he knows there’s no way he’ll ever be able to cut her out.

(From the corner of her eye, Jubilee catches him staring at the silver tattoo on her shoulder, and her heart aches too. She doesn’t know if it’s hers, or if her soulmate feels the same empty ache inside when they look at someone else.)

* * *

He isn’t sure how it happens. It’s Valentine’s Day. They’re the only ones still single, so it’s only natural for them to curl up in his apartment and watch sappy movies together while everyone else is on dates or fucking their soulmate somewhere else. And somehow it ends up with Jubilee sitting on his kitchen counter with red frosting smeared across her wrist from the cupcakes she was making. He doesn’t think when he leans in from where he’s standing between her legs with his hands on either side of her hips, mouth finding her skin easily to lick away the sweet raspberry flavor.

Jubilee’s breath catches in the back of her throat, and she stills beneath his touch, eyes wide and lips parted. It’s the boldest thing he’s ever done, but he’s tired of pretending, even if she breaks his heart.

Slowly, his gaze rises to meet hers, breath hot and wet on her skin. With her watching in rapt fascination, his tongue drags across her wrist again.

There’s still frosting on her wrist when she fists a hand in his hair and yanks his head up to meet hers in a kiss that has his head spinning from the start. Jubilee tastes like raspberries and honey, and he groans against her mouth as she takes his bottom lip between her teeth, biting down gently.

Sweet Pea’s arms wrap around her, one of his hands cradling the back of her neck as he tilts her head back, kissing her harder, deeper, until she lets out a sound that’s practically a sigh.

Her fingers dip low on his torso to slip beneath his shirt, and he lets her drag it upwards, her fingertips leaving fire in her wake. Sweet Pea rips the fabric off, tossing it to the floor, and she gasps when his hands hook beneath her thighs to lift her off the counter. Jubilee’s hips roll against his as he carries her across the apartment, wishing his bedroom was closer as her legs wrap around his hips and her lips find a spot on his throat that makes him moan her name.

He drops her down, and then her shirt is being tossed aside, his mouth on her neck, her shoulder, her chest, working lower and lower until she’s quivering beneath him with his hair wound through her fingers. The silver soul-mark on his chest burns in the best way; his heart skips when he sees the flash of silver on her own skin. Three letters, and it’s _his_ name, and she must see hers too, because for a moment everything stops.

And when his fingertips brush against her chest, her soul-mark pulses beneath his touch like a heartbeat that echoes his own. Their fingers lace together where they’re pinned against the mattress.

She’s on top of him then, kissing him like neither of them need to breathe, crushed against his chest like she wants to slip beneath his ribcage. He slides inside of her like he’s coming home, hard and hot, and Jubilee rocks against him, a steady rhythm.

Her hair falls around him in waves as her lips find his in a sweet kiss that steals his breath away and makes his chest ache with something he can’t put a name to. And something pulls taut between them, like a string tying them together, keeping them both from drifting off in different directions. Sweet Pea’s palm slides up her naked back to tangle in her hair, touching her with his hands and his mouth and every part of him that’s hers—with his heart.

He thinks he might be drowning, his lungs about to burst, and he lets it pull him down.

_Thank god for gravity._

“You knew,” she whispers the next morning, tucked against his side and tracing nonsensical patterns across his naked chest. It isn’t a question. Jubilee shifts slightly, just enough to tangle their legs together beneath the sheets, her dark hair tickling his skin where she’s resting against his shoulder. The familiar weight of her settles against him, holding him steady—an anchor, because some part of him is still drowning.

A low, content sound leaves him, and his thumb brushes across the swirling lines of silver on her shoulder, just like he’s wanted to do every single day since he put it there.

Of course, he knew. He thinks he always knew it was her, from that very first moment, even if he wasn’t willing to admit it then. Sweet Pea never wanted a soulmate, but if the universe needed him to meet someone, he’s glad it was her.

“Did you?” he asks instead of answering, watching the sunlight leave spots of gold against the wall.

Jubilee traces her name on his chest, stark silver, sharp and beautiful and magical. She shifts beside him, slipping over his lap, and his fingers drag up her naked sides all the way to where his own name is printed just below her breast. It’s the same color as his mark and the tattoo on the back of her shoulder. His throat tightens at the sight.

They both sigh when she kisses him, slower this time, and so soft that it makes his heart squeeze in his chest.


End file.
